Kade
Goddamn it, this relationship shit is hard. For a second after Lana just walks away, I sit here trying to get my head around it all. So she and Scud weren’t—of course they fuckin’ weren’t. I was an asshole for thinking that. Which means Scud must’ve been bothering her in some way. But he’ll deny it, and it wouldn’t look too good for the president to start on his VP, especially at a time like this, on the word of a woman . . .
Fuck, my mind ain’t where it needs to be.
I jump up and follow Lana across the café, out into the rain. She paces down the street, head held high. Normally, a woman walks away like this, making me chase her, and I just let her go. I never want to be the man chasing a woman down the street. But she’s the mother of my child; my child is in her belly. I want to sit down, take a moment, process it. I want to tell Duster. I want to hold Lana. I want all of this but she just keeps walking away from me through the rain.
I jog after her, take off my leather and lay it over her shoulders.
Rain lashes into our faces.
“This is stupid,” I say. “We should go inside.”
“So you can insult me some more?”
“Goddamn, Lana. How the fuck was I supposed to know?”
“If you’d waited for an explanation, instead of accusing me of fucking Scud, you would’ve known much sooner.”
She walks directly through a puddle, drenching her legs.
She’s going to catch hypothermia if she keeps on like this. Which would be bad enough if it was only herself she had to worry about. But my child—a man has to protect his child.
I pick Lana up, holding her in my arms, ignoring the way she squeals and kicks. “Let me go, Kade!” she punches me in the chest. “Let me go!”
My leather drops from her shoulders onto the sidewalk, into a puddle. I ignore it and carry Lana up the stairs to the town hall. I set her down out of the rain. “Wait here.” I collect my leather, rain-soaked, flecked with mud, and then return to her.
She’s soaked, hair plastered to her forehead, arms folded under her breasts. Breasts which are, I realize now I look at them properly, bigger than when we first met.
“So you’re having my baby,” I say. “What was all that shit with Scud about, then?”
“Do you really want to know?” She leans against the wall. “Or are you going to accuse me of asking for it?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“You did. Just now. You basically did.”
I swallow. “Fine. I’m sorry for that. I won’t do it again.”
She tells me what happened, about Scud coming onto her, making lewd comments, grabbing her arm and chasing her around the table.
I feel rage grip me. It makes the rage I used to feel back in the trailer park, the rage that gripped me every time I found Duster tooled up or came home to find Dad passed out with whisky spilled over the floor, look small and meaningless. This is the rage a man can only feel when the mother of his child is threatened. The rage of needing to protect your own. And yet, my rage is muddled by the reality of the club. It’s vulnerable. We’re in a crisis. If I kicked the shit out of my VP—which is what I want to do—it might push things over the edge. The men might lose faith, might start questioning me.
“I’ll kill him,” I say.
“Oh, don’t be silly!” Lana snaps, waving a hand. “It was scary, and horrible, but he didn’t actually do anything.”
“He grabbed your wrist.”
“Yes, and I scratched him and made him let go.”
“If I hadn’t come in . . .”
“But you did.” Lana steps up to me, places her hand on my chest, a wet hand against a wet shirt against wet skin, cold and yet somehow warm. She’s always warm. “He’s not the point, Kade. The child is the point.”
“I know.”
The baby is mine. The baby is mine. The baby is mine. Three times isn’t enough for it to really hit me. Hell, I don’t think three-hundred would be enough. I place my hand atop Lana’s.
And then she says it, says something I can’t say back, not now, not with the club at risk, not when I have to be strong.
She says, “I love you, Kade.”
I should say it back. It’s true. I know it’s true. I feel it in my bones. I feel it all over. But if I say it, I will be letting something in. Letting in feelings I have never let in before. Who knows what could happen? It’d make me weak. It’d make me start caring more than I should. It’d make me question everything. Maybe we’d be out in gunfight with the Italians and I’d have to be fearless but all I’d be thinking about is how I have a woman and a child to take care of. Maybe it’d turn me into a coward.
She looks at me expectantly. I should say it. I should. It’d be easier to say it if I didn’t feel it. Then I could just lie. Keep her happy. But I do feel it. And feelings get a man in my line of work killed damn quickly.
She takes a step back. “Oh,” she says. “I thought—oh.”
Say it, man. Say it. Say it!
I don’t, can’t. Not now.
The rain tap-tap-taps against the roof of the town hall. At the other side of the shelter, a group of kids stand in a circle smoking cigarettes, and an elderly couple sits on a public bench, looking peacefully out at the summer rain.
“I’m still moving to Seattle with Terry,” Lana says after a pause.
“Moving to . . .” With my child? “You’re not.”
“I’m not?” She coughs out a laugh. She’s trying to hold back tears, I realize. ’Cause I didn’t say I loved her back. I’m an asshole, that’s for sure, but I never claimed to be anything—“I am,” she snaps. “You don’t own me, Kade. Despite what you think, no man owns me. I am moving to Seattle with my friend and I am going to start looking out for myself again. That’s all I can do. I was an idiot for thinking anything else.”
“Lana,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. She’s in one hell of a mood today. Can’t blame her, but it doesn’t make it any easier. “You are not—”
“Stop fucking telling me what I am and am not doing!” she screams. The kids cackle madly from the other side of the shelter. The old couple flinches away. Lana bites her lip, and then whispers fiercely: “I am moving in with Terry, Kade. You’ve only ever seen me as property, anyway. Right from the start, you’ve just seen me as something which you can use whenever you want. And sure, maybe I’ve gone along with that. But that isn’t good enough for me anymore. I want my own life back. I’m not going to be a decoration for the clubhouse any longer. So I am going to move to Seattle with Terry and I am going to make a new life for myself. Don’t tell me what to do. I am not your bike, Kade. You can’t turn me on and off whenever you feel like it.”
“Lana—”
She glares at me and I know I’ve done something wrong. I know I’ve done many things wrong. I shouldn’t have questioned her about Scud. I should’ve been happier when she told me about the kid. I should’ve told her I loved her back. All these things, I should’ve done. But doing the right thing has never been one of my strengths.
“Don’t,” she interrupts. “Just don’t. I am done, Kade. If all you see me as is something to stick your prick in after a long day, I am done.”
She folds her arms, pouts at me.
Even now, I know I could fix this by telling her I love her. But that’s something I just can’t do. Not with all the other shit going on.
“Let’s get you back to the clubhouse,” I say.
“This is my last night there,” she replies. “I’m moving tomorrow. I’m calling Terry as soon as we’re out of the rain.”